ICYMI, a bunch of Brett Kavanaugh starter kits from Covington Catholic HS in Kentucky made spectacles of themselves yesterday:

The images in videos that went viral on social media Saturday showed a tense scene near the Lincoln Memorial.

In them, a Native American man steadily beats his drum at the tail end of Friday’s Indigenous Peoples March while singing a song of unity for indigenous people to “be strong” in the face of the ravages of colonialism that now include police brutality, poor access to health care and the ill effects of climate change on reservations.

Surrounding him are a throng of young, mostly white teenage boys, several wearing “Make America Great Again” caps, with one standing about a foot from the drummer’s face also wearing a relentless smirk.

Nathan Phillips, a veteran in the indigenous rights movement, was that man in the middle.

In an interview Saturday, Phillips, 64, said he felt threatened by the teens and that they suddenly swarmed around him as he and other activists were wrapping up the march and preparing to leave.

Completely unsurprisingly, it turns out that this school is notoriously for entitled racist rich shits:

None of this is surprising- what does one expect from an all male school around Cincinnati that sends teenagers to a “march for life” wearing MAGA hats? I mean, it would not surprise me at all if the parents and teachers are as bad as the kids or worse.

And while we are at it, it was not a march for “life.” It was an anti-abortion march. The fuckers at that yesterday don’t give a shit about life.

Also can we dispense with the media generated narrative that T’s supporters are the working poor? When in reality most of T’s rabid supporters are wealthier than the average American, I mean look at the Senate and the boardrooms of those who run the media houses.

I went an all-boys’ Catholic HS, and I would suspect that if that happened at least some of the students would have been expelled (my school kicked kids out if they got Ds). The chaperones…maybe fired, I’m not entirely sure. But the entire school would have a Monday afternoon assembly to get a dressing down by the principal for sure. I’d be a little more subtle and move all the friends in that class to separate classes so they’d lose the group encouragement.

@MattF:
What’s new is that that sense of entitlement now includes the approval of hate and bigotry coming from all the way to the president and his administration. As someone pointed out, now they can harass and threaten the minority or the marginalized merely by calling out Trump’s name or one of his slogans.

I think what these kids don’t realize is that technologies like facial recognition and machine learning is going to make youthful indiscretions (or not) become more and more permanent, and these families will have to spend big bucks to remove them from the Internet. I can totally see a potential employer or college recruiter receiving this video and doing a major nope.

Of course these are rich and entitled assholes, but I’m betting that they are probably just as emotionally abused as anyone. Can’t imagine they have a happy life living asshole parents.

@Shawntos: They are going to have to do more than call the Washington Post because it was all over the local media in Atlanta. The students have a right to free speech, but there are consequences to bad behavior.

I was obsessed with this story yesterday, mostly because it’s local. Did a lot of bouncing around the internet on it.

The kid was doxxed incorrectly — he is not Michael Hodge, Michael stayed home (good for him!).

And now I feel bad for Michael because this is going to follow him. He appears to be a nice kid who is set to attend the culinary school at the community college that is heavily minority and working class — a very different environment from his high school.

All the more reason I think for the powers of the internet to out the real asshole.

I am not buying the “he’s a minor” excuse — by high school you should have enough of a sense of right and wrong to know not to do what he did. It’s basic manners. Like many others have said, imagine if he was Black, we’d know his entire life history by now.

How many schools are there like this around the US right now churning out this kind of brash attitude of superiority? It’s so easy to pawn this off as it’s just kids but I don’t see kids, I see young men. Men who have rich parents who are going to graduate high school and have a free ride into their pick of ultra expensive colleges where they will meet other like minded twisted souls. These young boys will be future businessmen, leaders and possibly politicians. Today’s smirking a-hole kid is tomorrow’s Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell or God forbid, Donald Trump. You can really see the DJT parallel, pampered in a bubble, never a bad thing touching them, always getting away with whatever despicable thing that they do. You really have to wonder why there isn’t a stronger movement in the working class against a bunch of rich babies doing these things.

gregorg (@gregorg) Tweeted:
this feels like important context that isn’t coming through: Philips stepped in between the MAGAyouth and the African American youth they were surrounding. His drum and prayer was not a provocation, but a deflection and de-escalation. We should all be so brave.

@schrodingers_cat:
Never happening. They’ve bought the narrative and are still making the payments. Same deal with the tea party. I never say any poor folks at their rallies. They were rare as minorities.

But Mr. Phillips said he was in Vietnam in 1972, after the US had left, so granite counter tops in his kitchen!

Some RWMF (Cardillo, maybe?) tried pulling that shit, and also said those little darlings were not harassing the FAKE veteran, and the tapes prove it!!!! In fairness, the RWMF did not bring up Benghaziii!!!!!!!!!! or HER E-MAILS!, at least not that I saw.

@trollhattan: certain members of certain religions are conveniently outing themselves coming to their defense… supposedly the school superintendent was also present at the march…. I’m guessing the teachers and chaperones that were with should take the fall but are apparently unaware that confronting an old indian who’s protesting, harming no one and surrounding him with smirks on their faces is just par for the course for these kids and the lessons that they’ve learned from their parents and staff.

Just brings to light what POC, women put up on a daily basis, their self-assured power in numbers and power absolute and how its applied for all to see.

you have to be carefully taught and these kids have learned THAT lesson, now they’re getting a crash course on social media and its power.

@rikyrah:Almost accurate. Phillips stepped in between the misguided children and an extremist hate group that had been screaming insults, threats, and hate speech etc. at the Native Americans there as well as at the Catholic youth.

I can’t even look at Twitter comments about this. They all devolve into BS about fake news, oppressed white people and the usual hodge podge of Trumpian nonsense. And of course, it’s impossible to distinguish the real Americans from Russian bots.

Barring some cataclysmic event, this country is well and truly screwed for the forseeable future.

Watching those videos yesterday was unreal. I simply cannot wrap my head around what would make a bunch of clearly privileged kids on a field trip to the part of the country that celebrates everything good about America have such a sense of entitlement and righteousness that they’d face off an elderly Native American man playing a drum.

I mean, seriously, part of me still wants to believe that there was some sort of misunderstanding on the part of these dumbasses here, not simply what it looked like: MAGA Hate. I’m so looking forward to the story unrolling that gives me an idea of how, step by step, this happened–where did they get it into their heads to do this? Who told them that he and his group was “the enemy”? Was it a part of some kind of group think dare? Did these idiots think this was an “anti-Life” protest? Did they think it was funny? What is the explanation for the adults there with them allowing this behavior?

Occam’s Razor being what it is, I don’t feel hopeful that there actually is a better rationale for this. Plus just the few stories coming out about the general character of the students at this school are pretty damning.

What I hope is that the Catholic Church forces the school to shut down, period. Disperse the students, the staff, the identity of these monsters so they have to survive on their own in the real world public schools, where shoving your MAGA hat-wearing face at someone and harassing weaker students gets the shit beat out of you.

This got me thinking back to the one overnight school field trip my kid took, back in junior high, with the choir.

I was one of many parent chaperones. The teacher chaperones tended to be history teachers who coached sports and were taking classes to get degrees in administration. Aspiring principals. They were there to practice their chops as enforcers. And the principal herself came along.

Another mom chaperone and I were settling in our hotel room when a hotel staff knocked on the door. She was under orders to collect every coffee pot in every room occupied by our group, even the ones occupied by chaperones.

I still can’t imagine what havoc kids can wreck with coffee pots but that is the point of this rambling comment: our junior high was going to prevent every possible misbehavior.

This started way back with the introductory meeting for the parents and kids who were considering going on the trip. We were regaled with stories about the kids who were sent home in the middle of past trips at the family’s expense (escorted by one of the future administrators).

Exactly. They are arrogant little shits who have clearly been encouraged to be the assholes they are. Let’s not pretend it’s just their parents. It takes a village and they are part of a racist village.

@Duane: “Public shaming” is exactly what’s needed. Those kids felt free to openly voice racism because it was socially supported in their world. Trump has made that world wider. We need to counter balance with public shaming.

Nancy, I am still thinking about the State of the Union speech, there are so many options – including doing it as per your written offer (made during the Shutdown, security is no problem), and my written acceptance. While a contract is a contract, I’ll get back to you soon!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2019

More like a lie is a lie:

Wow, just heard that my poll numbers with Hispanics has gone up 19%, to 50%. That is because they know the Border issue better than anyone, and they want Security, which can only be gotten with a Wall.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2019

link to 1 hour 46 minute video of how the thing started. With some young black men (evangelizing loudmouths, really) excoriating the Indians, from a distance, for worshiping buffaloes and eagles and screaming scripture. One of the men is shouting. I haven’t watched enough to see the MAGA kids appear.

You see a young native American man come over and softly converse with them. Asks some question and the loudmouth in charge demands his associate quote a bible passage back to answer whatever question. The young Indian says something like “no, I want to hear your answer.”

Anyway, the MAGA bully kids got a real life example of protected free speech protests. Which they may not have appreciated at the time. But they became part of a huge and ugly story, which is how nasty people, in a group, are capable of all sorts of idiocy.

@Shawntos: It’s a CINCINNATI Catholic school…German Catholics who are more likely to end up in Opus Dei than “normal” catholics lol . This behavior doesn’t surprise me at all. I expected them to start yelling “Baby killers!” any minute.

@MomSense: It struck me just now that, having seen Brett Kavaugh close up, and seeing all the people who supported him because he was one of their own so of course they could vouch for him, has opened a lot of eyes about privileged youth and the elite boys club. How many elites in our government and in the private sector believe there are above the law, just like Brett Kavanaugh?

Of course I knew all that existed before, but many of us had no idea just how ugly it was and how riddled our institutions are with low quality people, some of whom are revered!

Trayvon Martin opened a lot of eyes, mine included. My liberal friends still look startled when I say things like “police have to stop murdering young black boys”. But once you see it, it can’t be unseen. It’s everywhere. Brett Kavanaugh has done the some thing for me. I see these boys from yesterday as loathsome creatures who truly are Brett Kavanaugh starter kits. It sickens me to know that there are Brett Kavanaugh starter kits everywhere and to know that Trump is their sunlight and their water and their fertilizer.

I am torn again, once more, between screaming and crying and throwing up.

While for me, the entire issue of religion is a bad joke, still – does any one read the damn bible at all? Fact: god luv’s him some abortion. Woman convicted of a stoning offense in the bible (I read of two examples) are stoned even though they are very pregnant and the sentence is never delayed to spare the fetus. Also, rabbi’s are allowed to create a mixture that, if the wife was unfaithful, will induce an abortion. This whole f’ing abortion thing was created by a small group of people back in the late 70’s that were angry about losing tax breaks. Its a fucking scam!

@Planetjanet: Right I couldn’t devise a more toned deaf approach then sending an all boys highschool to an antichoice rally. It boggles the mind.

I’ve noticed that as the Catholic Church loses ground in the US it’s adopting at least locally more of the feel of Fundamentalist White Evangelical churches. Really digging into the resentment and culture war crap while discarding the things that were actually decent about it. Noticed from my parents church where Catholics even fiftenn years ago were expected to “Ok Jan” the church when it comes to birth control etc now they really want to create scary little believers.

@Amir Khalid: I’m already seeing people saying that while what they did was wrong, they’re just poor minors who shouldn’t be identified. Since they were harassing an elderly man in public, I couldn’t care less about their privacy. They should have thought about that before they decided to engage in racist conduct. I notice that some of them were videotaping the event so they should be okay with the publicity.

link to 1 hour 46 minute video of how the thing started. With some young black men (evangelizing loudmouths, really) excoriating the Indians, from a distance, for worshiping buffaloes and eagles and screaming scripture. One of the men is shouting.

Were these the “Muslims” that the mother of one of the Covington kids was referring to? They were equally looney Evangelical Lifer Christians who also happen to be black so the sweet white Catholic Lifer Christian boys were “being harassed by Muslim terrorists” now? That’s gonna be their story?

Still doesn’t explain how they decided to get in the Elder’s face like they did. Except they’re so stupid they didn’t realize he was trying to de-escalate a pending fight.

@Patricia Kayden: Some young blonde woman was bouncing around in the background, too, late in one video clip. Maybe someone’s relative or girlfriend. Reminded me of Sarah Palin on SNL, when she was kind of dancing around in her seat.

I think we will see some yearbook photos identifying these critters before the day is out. And I do think some of the youngest boys probably went along because they wanted to be cool, too.

Wondering if we are going to see a lot of parents pulling their kids out of that Catholic high school hellhole.

@Patricia Kayden: I’d be most interested in exposing the parents and educators who thought this kind of behavior would be acceptable, especially in public. And if the school does take disciplinary action, it’s only a couple more years before the kids are identified when their Ivy League applications get rejected.

@MattF: In my experience working with my kids schools, assholes are decided outliers in public schools, at least out here in OC. Now, there’s certainly no shortage of entitled white kids here, but they’re diluted sufficiently by asian and latino and whatnot that they never really get their critical mass on. That also goes for the asian and latino kids. Asshole behavior is cultural, so by diversifying the culture, you remove the privilege that allows it to be waved proudly.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t asshole kids, but they don’t seem to rise up to positions of status and power here – they’re the fuckups – because they’re assholes.

@Patricia Kayden: I say this about people who want to doxx anyone. Be damned sure you’ve got the right person. Don’t ruin someone’s life for something they didn’t do. Ohio Mom has already noted that one kid “identified” as being in the middle of it wasn’t even there.

@Ella in New Mexico: Xtianists of each sect do not generally recognize other Xtianist sects as legitimate. Ergo they must be something else, and usually something else that’s scary. Especially if they’re Blah.

The Detroit Free Press has a great interview with Nathan Phillips:
“These young, white American kids who were being taught in their Catholic school, their doctrine, their truth, and when they found out there’s more truth out there than what they’re being taught, they were offended, they were insulted, they were scared, and that’s how they responded. One thing that I was taught in my Marine Corp training is that a scared man will kill you. And that’s what these boys were. They were scared.”

So I was at the Women’s March in DC yesterday. There were a number of anti-abortion protestors who hung around to counterprotest the women. They were standing along the route with horrible pictures and bullhorns. Their signs were calling us all sluts and said we should submit to our husbands. Most were men, but not all. The crowd was amazingly calm in comparison. A few hand gestures, some chanting to drown out the bullhorn. At one location a few police were nearby, but looked like city police, not militaristic stormtroopers. They were standing within inches of the marchers. At another location, volunteers stood in a line between the march and the protesters. The protesters clearly wanted to be provocative and hateful. I was proud that the thousands of women passing by mostly left them alone, It was peaceful. I did not hear of any arrests in the face of this hate.

There are clearly too many people who feed off of hate. We have to keep working for justice and respect. But for a moment, these counterprotesters seemed sad to me. Their opinions do not matter to me. They have no control over me and it hurts them. I will work to try to change the minds of those who choose to think for themselves. Not everyone is intuitively compassionate, able to see another’s point of view on their own. They need help to think beyond themselves. I will work with them. But some are clearly lost in their hate.

Oh, and that video serves as a reminder that your favorite red baseball cap needs to stay in your closet. I don’t care what it says on the front, anyone wearing a red cap is assumed to be an asshole. Nobody wants to give the person wearing one the energy to determine if it’s a MAGA hat or a Cincy Reds hat, we’ll just assume it’s a MAGA hat.

@Martin: in DC its probably a Nats cap. I have a red DC cap, and. Reds hat. Sorry but saying you’re justified judging me because my cap is red is no different than any other judgement based on clothing. We all do it by habit, but it’s lazy and wrong.

@cliosfanboy: Doesn’t matter where you are, don’t wear it. My kids high school colors were red and gold and there were a ton of red baseball caps with the school logo on it – nobody wears them. The baseball team switched to a different color. It’s a bit like wearing a white hood. You can have all the explanations on earth for what it really is, but people won’t stop seeing a klan hood.

@cliosfanboy: You know, wouldn’t that be the greatest? The nations turns its eyes to out of control white Catholic boys (from the heartland) bullying and …

they got their moment in the spotlight because the Park police were not around to help calm things down? Because Trump shut the government down?

All the better so we could see what his supporters — the young, non-voting yet bloc — are like.

If this was in a movie, you would think it was contrived.

It’s interesting that Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, the three states nearest Covington, have all gone solid GOP for their Senators and governors. The young heartland right there, folks. (Albeit, lots of non-MAGA types too. They just keep getting outvoted.)

I’ve noticed that as the Catholic Church loses ground in the US it’s adopting at least locally more of the feel of Fundamentalist White Evangelical churches.

Christianity in the US has been dying for at least the last two generations. It’s a slow process, but if you look back the differences are stark. For two hundred years, people who didn’t go to some Christian church were considered oddities, at the very least decadent bohemians. ‘God’ was referenced all over the place. Now, nobody gives a damn and you get weird looks if you say God told you to do something. Worst of all, their kids keep finding out about the outside world and leaving. And there’s all these uppity brown people and women! As it gets worse, they make allies out of former enemies because the desperate war against secularism is more important.

@OzarkHillbilly: Very, very true. But they weasel out and say god’s will so ok. But in the bible humans are allowed to do it. Also, why not wait to punish a criminal if a fetus can be saved? Because in the bible (the lol word of god) the fetus isn’t human nor have any rights at all. That is the key issue here for these psychopaths called evangelicals (I do not consider jackals here who are also evangelicals on that same level at all. You’ve proven that you are both intelligent and reasonable since you are here and learning; hence, you are not one of the crazy religious types – even if you are against abortion (but not choice – otherwise, you are really bat shit crazy reading here..)

@OzarkHillbilly: No, I think we should take it back. I’m just saying that the red hat is seriously triggering to some people, and now is probably not the time to try and take it back when ‘owning the libs’ is the defining moral principle for 40% of the country, and that red hat is the most direct way to broadcast that’s your intentions.

@Omnes Omnibus: Not German Catholics in general, but those who immigrated to the upper midwest (e.g. Cincinnati) in the late 19th century in response to the Kulturkampf anti-Catholicism back home. It stamped them with a bit more cultural insularism, hostility to secular authority, and orthodox dogmatism than other Roman Catholic communities in the USA.

@Martin: I have thought about this from time to time. I have a red St Louis Cardinals hat, but I almost never wear it. Would be nice if, in a 180 from the 1950s when the Cincinnati Reds changed their name for a few years to the “Redlegs” to avoid being associated with the “Red Scare” [although Redlegs was problemmatic since the term derives from white slaves in the Carribean] http://www.todayifoundout.com/.....red-scare/; the Reds changed their name and/or colors to something else for a while. But not the Whites?

Maybe whatever Marty Brennaman wants, it’s his last year of broadcasting coming up.

Maybe Cole should never wear anything that says West Virginia because we know how WV is. Sikhs should stop wearing turbans, and let’s not mention young black men with hoodies.

Making that kind of snap judgement may be understandable, but it’s wrong. If someone thinks I am a trump thug because they can’t see the big C or the DC on the front then screw them. That’s their problem.

Meanwhile, I’m struck by the following thought experiment: Imagine it had been a black kid wearing a BLM hat getting up in the face of an elderly Trump supporter with a creepy leer on his face while dozens of other black kids chanted anti-Trump slogans in the background, (1) How many seconds would it take the elderly Trump supporter to call the cops? and (2) Would any of the black kids get arrested or even shot and killed for the exact same conduct that these racist white boys engaged in?

@mad citizen: they wore red and white then. And Redlegs came from Red Stockings, their original 19th century names. Red Legs also refers to artillery troops and a Union guerilla group in the Civil War. A neo Confederate really got his nose bent out of shape once when he saw my redlegs jacket.

German Catholics are the worst, my first wife’s dad was one. He’d get drunk on his ass on Saturday night (about 12-15 beers and most of a 5th of Windsor Canadian) and be up before dawn to usher at Mass. One of the priests had a chat with him about his drinking and how he reeked of booze as he ushered. He got pissed off and never went back to the church until his funeral. His oldest son was just as bad. My lovely sister is married to another German Catholic who is a RWNJ, MAGA hat wearing son of a bitch. He thought it was a good idea to call me a couple of weeks after my mother’s funeral and tell me what commie-pinko lib she was and that she was going to burn in hell. My Mom was an unreconstructed FDR liberal. Nobody in the family speaks to him anymore and his oldest girl, a doctor, told me she has to restrain herself from kicking him in the nuts whenever she sees him So yeah they are real assholes

I have a weird sound issue – my sound is off, when I looked at the sound control, it says my output is set to dummy output – in other words, not the built in laptop speakers. When I plug in USB speakers, I get digital or analog output choices, it sounds better than the built-ins.

But when I unplug the USB speakers, it defaults back to dummy output, silent. System 76 running Ubuntu 18.04…

interesting that this incident is drawing way more attention on social media and from the MSM than the Racist in Chief’s broadcast yesterday. Not saying that’s wrong or a problem. But that maybe we are finally seeing those who are behind this horrible shithole in the WH get some comeuppance for their wanting to fly their racist flags 24/7/365. I heard the major networks took a pass. Is that right?

These thoughtless teenagers have not actually considered the results of telling indigenous people to “build thatThese teenagers have not actually considered the results of telling indigenous people to “build that wall” The teens ancestors would have been on the wrong side.

It stamped them with a bit more cultural insularism, hostility to secular authority, and orthodox dogmatism than other Roman Catholic communities in the USA.

Not sure this is true. I just heard an old-family (as in living in this country twelve generations) Hispanic woman hold forth about the evils of abortion and how women kill their babies through abortion procedures as late as nine months in the womb. A devoutly Catholic Irish-American friend of mine from California is passionately anti-abortion too. This appears to be a fairly common stance among believers n the RC church (and evangelicals of course).

@Martin: Meh, if I’m at a Cards game it’s a pretty safe bet all those red hats in the crowd are STL hats.

On the other hand, soon after the election my oldest son gave me a blue hat that says, “Make Racism Wrong Again”. He recently gave me another because it’s gotten kinda hard to read under all the dirt and wear. So now I have a dress “Make Racism Wrong Again” hat.

@ThresherK: And today I learned another definition for the word “maroon”–thanks! I’m generally fascinated by how cruel humans have been/are to each other, slavery a big example. The kids MAGA hat video is sickening.

@SFAW: He may have been in the Nam but he was quoted telling that bullshit “hippies spit on me” story so I have a bit of an issue. It doesn’t change what those punks were up to but skip the beleaguered Nam vet shit.

@Martin: I have a baseball red hat from Wonkette that says “Impeach” on the front. More than a few people reacted to the red hat without seeing the front, then saw the front, and breathed a sigh of relief. Then complimented me on my hat. I always give a Wonkette sales pitch and point out that they also sell a blue “Hell No!” hat as well, which always gets a laugh.

Mr. Suzanne often says that you can tell a Young Republican by their smirk. He is absolutely right.

It is MLK Sunday at my ultra-liberal Methodist church today, but I am feeling like ultra-crap and I am not able to get it together. (I missed the March yesterday, too.) I made it through half of the service. Prayers of thanks and strength were given for Nathan Philips.

I hate how these people have “blemished and scarred” the church that is meant to represent radical love and acceptance of every thread of the human tapestry. It is some of the heaviest grief I carry.

@Ohio Mom: This is why Brad Moss was right to say do not doxx these kids: the risk of getting it wrong and fucking things up for a kid who didn’t do it.

But get the actual smirker’s name right and plaster it over the internet please. I can barely look at the image without crying. I consider Dennis Banks a friend from when he lived in Newport and I got to spend time with him and Alice regularly.

@Keith P.: In my HS the expulsion letter would have been in the mail before they got home from theirlittle field trip. Then the whole student body would have been on the receiving end of a blistering sermon about what is expected of Christians in general and members of a CATHOLIC GIRLS’ ACADEMY in particular that was calculated to make you feel like a dried up bit of cheese just in case it ever had crossed your mind to do likewise. (They always seemed to be speaking in caps when they said the CGA thing and they said that when you were in deep sh*t.)

There are a number of Catholic high schools in my city and they don’t seem to involve the students in things like this event. It tends more to volunteerism in the community. Food/pantry/ soup kitchen stuff, school supply or winter coat drives, etc. My daughter wore her no coat hangers button pinned to her uniform sweater for 4 years in the 90’s and no one ever told her not to. They talked about respect for life in all its stages more that focusing on abortion.

Who could possibly be surprised that a bunch of anti-abortion fanatics showed up in DC to be pandered to by Trump & Pence and they brought their shitty kids with MAGA hats with them? A contingent will get invited to the White House.

@Elizabelle: Cincinnati (Hamilton County) is a dot of blue amidst red Kenfuckty, Indiklanna, and the remainder of Owhyo. City/County voted Obama in 2008, 2012 and Hillary in 2016. We also voted State Democratic ticket, voted first African American (who happens to be a woman) to be Hamilton County commissioner and are considered the only bright spot in Ohio Democratic politics.

@pluky: You described perfectly the historical Catholic Germans, Irish and Italians who migrated to Cincinnati. ETA :You’ve also provided context to help me understand why many Catholics here are so reactionary and hateful. I have to say that there are many excellent Catholic based organizations (Sisters of Charity) that truly do God’s work. I see it in my neighborhood.

“Bro country” is what seems to be popular in country music these days. There are exceptions and sub-genres of course, but white boys wearing baseball or trucker hats seem to be what tops the charts on a regular basis.

Somewhere along the way country music performers lost the cowboy hats and started wearing baseball/trucker hats. Doesn’t surprise me that a red hat along those lines became the signature piece for Trump. His demo was already wearing them. Trump’s team just had to pick a color and add the slogan.

@SFAW: In his interview he says “I’m a Vietnam time Veteran” and his wiki says her served in the military during the war. If people want to take this and label him a Vietnam Vet it’s only a matter of time before his story gets discounted. I juts don’t think it should be the centerpiece of the story. Notice that John doesn’t mention it, he knows what time it is.

These days I have second thoughts about wearing my Rutgers hat. It’s solid black with a large red “R” on the front. Anyone in central Jersey would know what it really means, but I fear other non-alumni would mistake it for “Republican.” *puke*

We condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic high school students,” a statement by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High School read. “This behavior is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person. The matter is being investigated and we will take appropriate action, up to and including expulsion. We know this incident also has tainted the entire witness of the March for Life and express our sincere apologies to all those who attended the March and those who support the pro-life movement.”

They apologized to the anti choice marchers, not the offended parties. (From WaPo, i’m link impaired)

I know fellow juicers are happy to know this expression but it is a very PRUSSIAN and Northern German expression, both populations not known for their passion or willingness to actually pull through with such an action.

Also, the more you depart Northern Germany the more the letter e is being compressed in endings or prepositions. So a WATSCHENGESICHT would never be pronounced or even written like that but more like WATSCHNGSICHT or even WATSCHNXICHT.

How I know? Obv a native Southern German speaker. And just to make something clear right away as we know a bunch of Prussians are going to protest loudly: High German (like the Queen’s English) is officially from the northern regions of SOUTHERN GERMANY.
Also too, the Southern German, Bavarian, and Austrian propensity for cursing and not taking shit is more aligned with the general attitude of BJ jackals. So there’s that.

There’s an interview and article with/about Mr. Phillips in the Detroit Free Press that mentioned that the black men were Black Hebrew Israelites, who believe the Jews are counterfeit usurpers and the blacks are the true descendants of the Biblical Israelites. Despite identifying as Hebrew, most sects use the King James Bible as their text and shout Bible verses when confronted or questioned. They are basically street corner shouting preachers who are very profane and confrontational. I’ve seen them in NYC once or twice. There are big differences in the beliefs of each sect and group (“splitters!). Some of them believe that Native Americans, and Hispanics are allies against the white oppressor. Others borrow from LDS beliefs about the Ten Lost Tribes settling the Americas and believe that Africans were the original settlers of the Americas but were wiped out by Native Americans, who they describe as “savages” and “mongoloids”.

There were a number of anti-abortion protestors who hung around to counterprotest the women.

The only non-violent way is to make fun of them, shame them, like protesters did in Charlotte to the KKK. Assembling together, dressed like clowns, and deriding every statement the KKK made. White Power! Wife Power? White Flour! To medievalists like you mention, surround them with clowns pointing and laughing at them.

If I was to win the powerball, I’d spend millions making it so. A kazoo in every kitchen, a clown car on every corner, manned up and ready to roll

I think there is a lot more bullying than people realize. Most kids don’t report bullying because they have no faith in their teachers and administrators to get the response right. But the retaliation by the bullies – that is a certainty.

It takes time spent with the students and a lot of trust before they will tell you what is happening. My kid got involved in defending a kid who was being bullied and it became so vicious so fast. Some of the bullies were “good kids” according to the teachers.

Santini didn’t have much on my father in law, when his youngest son graduated Summa cum Laude with two degrees, one in orchestral music and the other in electrical engineering and was headed to graduate school at MIT to study acoustical engineering, the old bastard piped up at the party saying, “You’d think with all that education you’d be thinking about getting a job.” The kid was crushed.

@The Pale Scot: You might have enjoyed the tone of the anti-anti choice protests in Chicago in the 1990’s. Between Chicago Ladies Against Women (CLAW!) and the Radical Fairies, and every flavor of scorn and ridicule in-between, we were quite a show.

Yes yes, and since that little dipshit (Arschloch, Hurenkind, Saubeidl, have your pick) is Catholic, or belonging to a Catholic organization, it’s more fitting to use the finest insults from the Catholic regions of Germany.

My favorite: Ausgschwappts Mülchheidl (that skin that forms on top of a warm cup of milk? That yuck skin spilled out of a cup. To add a twist, instead of using the word for skin the word for foreskin is used haha
Yes, that state of pathetic ugliness and worthlessnes. Literal translation: Spilled milkforeskin)

Quite fitting for that little piece of shit standing in front of the Elder.

@OzarkHillbilly:
I think you are right about the color — but I think it might be useful to make MAGA Hats a villified thing.
MAGA Hats are Brown Shirts. And if some other red trucker caps get caught up in that, I really can’t say I’m too sorry.

Swastikas are swastikas — anyone can wear one on an armband or Tatoo it on their face — that’s their right. And then they can try to explain to everyone they mean something completely the opposite of what everyone thinks it means. But no one has to buy their explanation — that’s the other side of free speech. And MAGA hats, although certainly part of protected speech, should suffer the same fate as the swastika -. A villified taboo thing.

I was just heartened by reading this op-ed in the NYT (Dec. 31, 2018) by two Polish democracy advocates, Karolina Wigura and Jaroslaw Kuisz. They counsel against Masha Gessen/Sarah Kendzior style catastrophizing (although they don’t name them):

In Poland, as in many countries these days, we live somewhere between liberal democracy and illiberal authoritarianism. This status must neither be disregarded nor exaggerated, but carefully diagnosed — and gradually dismantled. Too many liberals try to call people to action by oversimplifying the diagnosis, limiting the range of possibilities: Either everything is fine or democracy is dead. But this makes it impossible to see that more strategies are possible, and in effect it makes liberals similar to their opponents in their radicalism and their blunt language. It also makes liberals focus only on the elections without creating a broader vision of what defeating illiberals means for the future. Liberalism means belief in the freedom of the individual; therefore it demands trust in the people. It also requires optimism. In order not to fall into dangerous determinism or counterproductive defensiveness, we have to remember that the greatest successes of liberal democracies emerged from hope.

“If you still want to use the laptop speakers, do you have an option to select them?”

Nope, that’s the question. External USB speakers or nuthin’ …

Gotta have tunes…

I’m going to travel (optimistically) to Tucson AZ Tuesday, and would rather not pack the speakers, although since I can check 2 bags, not a deal breaker, I will do it, along with a couple big fat books in case my tablet dies in some way.

Not going to take a chain saw, that would be absurd in a suitcase. ;-)

@Jager:
My Dad really valued education, but he was fond of saying, “That guy’s got a BS, MA, even a PhD; but he’s got no J-O-B.”. Education was transactional to him. When I finished law school and took a job as a Public Defender in Miami, he asked, “Why didn’t you get a real job like your friend Tom?” (Who got hired at a big Boston firm.)

But that was part of his immigrant schtick. He was crazy proud of how far one of his sons got and ultimately liked me more for not chasing the cash.

@Keith P.: The school sponsors a bus trip to DC for an anti-abortion rally, they harass a Native American elder for a long time with cameras in their faces, most of them are wearing MAGA hats, and the chaperones do nothing about it? It’s the culture of the school. Also from some other accounts this school has a culture like the one Kavanaugh went to decades ago. At most Catholic high schools I think wearing a MAGA hat would cause a discussion with various teachers and dean etc. And shunning by most students. The culture in most is about multiculturism, the message of tolerance and respect from Jesus, etc. But this is in Kentucky, near Cincinnati.

Yeah, I do wish the Red Hat Hatred was not the issue it is. But the Trump-backing MAGAts do hate them some lieberals, and I confess it is really hard not hating right back at them…

My brother has always been a conservative Republican, in spite of a youth that doesn’t really fit into that belief pattern. We have spent time together and just tacitly agree not to discuss politics, not even close. We usually call the other for birthdays.

But my past birthday can and went with no phone call. I can live with that, I guess. But I do think it’s pretty sad. I won’t be calling someone who doesn’t want to call me, for sure.

Ball caps have turned into personalized branding. I have a black cap with “Christian Pro” on the front. I’ve been in Costco and had people come up and say “Bless You”. Christian Pro is a brand of hockey stick. I thank them and say, “yes I use a lie 5 left with a moderate curve”

@schrodingers_cat: I hate sunglasses, but the older I get the more I realize I have to protect my eyes more than I have been. So I wear a bill cap (logo: my local land trust, not a sports team) to keep the sun of my eyes. Since I realized a few years ago that fluorescent lights were a possible migraine trigger for me (usually combined with other factors), and overhead lights drive me crazy in general, I mostly wear a cap indoors as well, unless I’m at home where the lighting is still incandescent. The resulting hat hair, while annoying, is an acceptable trade-off AFAIC.

@Elizabelle: He is kinda the exception what proves the rule these days…but maybe that means we ought to be looking at how he’s sticking around for a clue as to how we might (slowly, painfully) move the MAGAts to the point of understanding that they need to (1) tell the truth (for “the truth will set you free”) & (2) be reconciled to the rest of the American public. ‘Cu quite frankly, the whole Truth & Reconciliation thing seems a long ways down the road…

@Jager: Nice. I had some custom work done on my truck by Armorology out of Dobson Springs. Their name is on a sticker on a back side window of my truck, along with skull decals from Ballistic Fabrication.

I’ve had several book bangers, including a cop, ask me if I’m into Satan worship.

@cliosfanboy: Not putting away my Angels cap. And for shame to even suggest this since he lives in the OC. ;-)
We were visiting in SoCal for a wedding in March 2017 and our kids were with us at a little cafe in Lake Arrowhead. My older daughter whispered to me, “See that red hat? Is it a MAGA hat?” She was repelled by the thought of it polluting the otherwise gorgeous day, but I looked and the guy turned enough that I could see it was an Angels cap.

Some years ago, I bought a box of old magic junk at a flea market (Rose Bowl). I got home and much to my horror and disgust, I found several old ‘good luck’ coins (magicians back in the day tossed them out as souvenirs) that featured a swastika. These were from the late 1800’s/early 1900’s.
I was so angry. I wanted to return all the shit right there and then and give the guy who sold it to me a piece of my mind.

Then I went to the books…

Turns out, the swastika was not always a symbol of the Third Reich. Before their time, it was considered a good luck symbol, like the horseshoe or the four leaf clover (also featured on the coins). It was the Nazis who co-opted the swastika and turned into a symbol for diabolical evil.
This Christmas, I was dragging out the usual holiday junk, and I found my old red ‘Christmas cap’. It looks like a MAGA cap but it says ‘Merry Christmas’ on the front instead. I used to wear it during the holidays, shopping, running errands, picking up relatives at the airport. My only intention was to spread a little holiday cheer… and keep the sun out of my eyes.
I was standing there, holding my stupid red ‘Merry Christmas cap’ thinking about all the things that the right wing nuts have ruined by weaponizing them. Red caps be damned, you can’t say either “Merry Christmas!’ OR “Happy Holidays!’ nowadays without it starting a fucking fight.

Nothing insightful here. Just the musings of a sad old man who happens to own a red cap and a handful of old, cheap ‘good luck’ coins.

@The Midnight Lurker: Dang! I bet you wish you had those coins back, maybe worth something, but cool nonetheless. It’s too bad the Nazis co-opted that symbol because it’s a cool one and was used in various cultures. There are some pre-Nazi small tiles in the Phys Ed building at Indiana University that have the symbol, at least the last time I was there–many years ago. Haven’t heard of any controversies regarding those, but suppose it could be ripe. It’s a very cool tiled entryway, though, 100 years old.

@J R in WV: I’m on a Mac, so my sound configuration doohickeys (sorry for the technical jargon!) won’t be the same as yours, but I did high-end document processing (graphics, text, photos et al) for some years professionally and found that if got stumped, and typed my exact issue into the google search bar, no matter HOW arcane or niche-y it was, someone had already had the same question, and usually an answer would appear. Maybe you’ve already done that, but if not, I’d give it a try.

The billionaire front-runner to be the Republican candidate in the U.S. presidential race says he sometimes refuses to pay bills from contractors he has hired and then forces them to negotiate the final figure down.
“I’ve had many people that when they work for me they get very rich,” Trump said in an interview with Reuters, but, “sometimes I renegotiate.” Adding: “I’ll do that with probably 10 or 15 percent of contractors.”

So Nancy Pelosi should feel comfortable denying DJT a televised MAGA rally in the HR chamber, where plans to he slam the Far Left’s control of the Democrat Party[1], and to slam other Enemies of the People like the non-radical-right media. And the Democrats and the Media will then openly laugh at his puny, soft Nerf-Wedges.

[1] The US is now officially supportive of the Far Left, according to DJT. That’s nice to hear. :-)

@J R in WV: FWIW, once evening many years ago I drove 3/4 the width of Eire (near Limerick to Dublin ‘burbs) in a rented Versa with a chainsaw in the boot. It wasn’t mine but my passenger’s, & it was (supposedly) bound by air to a clump of beachfront condos near Alicante, SP. Long story.

@Sebastian: as someone living near Trier and the Saarland, it is quite clear how deeply Catholic and how deeply entrenched xenophobia, and anti-semitism have been. These areas were firm supporters of fascism, but that fever has broken here, as far as I can tell.

@Ladyraxterinok:
Men would wear a suit and hat to go to work in dirty conditions, blue color work, even in the 50s, and women wore dresses, because that’s what one wore. Of course they also didn’t have the choices we have today and because of the technology the cost of clothing could be a larger percentage of the income. I think the men also wore their sunday go to church suit daily after it was too worn to wear to church. To my mind and remembering that changed around 1960 in a lot of places to be at least a bit more casual.

It makes me think of years back when my neighborhood in San Francisco had a pretty bad gang violence problem. The two gangs in the area had red and blue as their colors, and this was pretty much exactly in between their territories, and a lot of random Latino people had been beaten up or shot because someone wrongly thought they were on the opposing side. One day I was at the corner bar and witnessed the following conversation (in Spanish) between the bartender and a South American guy who was new to the neighborhood. The guy had a red hat on.

Around the same time, guess who decided to have a bunch of their big tough dudes show up in the neighborhood, in both territories, and stand around in an attempt to make people feel safer? Curtis Sliwa and the Guardian Angels—in fucking red berets.

so reason magazine now has an article claiming that we are all wrong about these kids. of course, the whole article rests on the assumption that nathan phillips and other witnesses didn’t see and hear what they saw and heard.

of course, jake tapper had to retweet it right away. fucking assholes will always find a way to blame the black guys (who in this case are admittedly nuts) and the native american, while completely exonerating the innocent white boys. fuck.